8 April 2015
The FCCA has today accepted conditionally the transaction whereby Elisa Oyj will gain control over Anvia Oyj. The conditions relate to broadband services on a landline network to consumers in Vaasa, Mustasaari and Laihia.
The parties to the transaction operate in the telephone and data communications services markets in Finland, with their core business consisting of services provided in landline and mobile networks. The condition that was set for the approval of the transaction consisted of the commitments concerning landline broadband services to consumers in Vaasa, Mustasaari and Laihia.
Elisa undertakes to sell, in the form of a business acquisition, the contracting parties' overlapping network and the related consumer customers' broadband service agreements in Vaasa, Mustasaari and Laihia. If it had not been for these commitments, the result may have been a rise in the price of broadband services in the area's landline network.
The FCCA also studied the effects of the acquisition in terms of landline broadband services in other Ostrobothnian municipalities where Anvia has been operating for a long time. However, Elisa does not have consumer customers other than in Vaasa, Mustasaari and Laihia, and stopped selling landline broadband services in other municipalities already in August 2008. The intervention threshold based on the Competition Act was therefore not exceeded in this market.
The FCCA also assessed the competitive situation with regard to broadband service, corporate communication service and backbone network service markets and phone mast markets, but concluded that this transaction does not prevent effective competition in the market. The pressure by other actors in the market is so considerable in this market that competition problems are unlikely.
FCCA's decision issued today includes numerous business secrets of the parties involved. The decision can only be published after the confidential information has been removed, which will take approximately two weeks.
Further information:
Hanna Kaiponen, Senior Research Officer, tel. +358 29 505 3620
Maarit Taurula, Head of Research, tel. +358 29 505 3381
Email addresses: firstname.lastname@kkv.fi